


Downtime

by Dien



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jossed, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, slashy if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dien/pseuds/Dien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written during the summer hiatus between S1 and S2. Details of the rescue got jossed, but I'm still fond of this bit of fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

Finch drifted in and out of consciousness, the exhaustion and the painkillers tag-teaming to send him through Vicodin-laced dreams of Alicia becoming Root becoming Jordan (Tara), conversations about books punctuated with muzzle flash, sparks arcing over tinfoil and the monotonous blink of a cursor, old-school, a green square on black on the sort of monitor he hadn't used in thirty years.  
  
 _blink - blink – blink  
  
I'll be back,_ Reese had whispered in his ear. _Rest. Don't go anywhere._  
  
Not that he could have even if he'd wanted to. Reese had deposited him on something soft, a mattress, somewhere with cool sheets and a soft pillow and beckoning oblivion. He'd obeyed Reese's directions. Maybe that was the effect of the sodium pentothal, Root hadn't stinted on the injections (his arm looked like a junkie's), and today's 150 mg had effectively reduced him to thinking every firmly-delivered suggestion was probably worth following.  
  
A tiny part of him noted this impulse with wry detachment. Not his nature, to stupidly obey. Knowing that didn't change anything. He remained in the bed.   
  
The cursor-in-his-mind blinked, blinked, blinked.  
  
Waiting for input. His body an old, damaged system-- obsolete parts and hurried patches, kludges and bugs. Stripped drives, and a motherboard rebooted from crash after crash, titanium workarounds in his spine and all he could do was replace part after part, the basic hardware was what he was stuck with. And now he was quiet, hibernating, awaiting the commands from his brain to get his system back on-line and moving and walking and eating and living.  
  
Reese said _don't go anywhere_ and he didn't. And hoped, when he could think clearly enough to hope, that he hadn't been so obliging with Root.  
  
Time passed. He knew this because the blurry red numbers on the clock changed.  
  
Lucidity and pain came back hand in hand. Something had woken him. What? The click of the door shutting. The room was dark save for the clock's scarlet reading.   
  
He licked his lips. Lifting his head was out of the question-- his neck was tolerable if it it remained at this angle. He didn't want to tempt fate.   
  
"Reese?" he said, except his mouth was dry and he croaked instead, a crow's unlovely hoarseness.  
  
There were steps. There was something before him.  
  
"Thirsty?" Reese whispered and he didn't have to answer, there was plastic at his lips and water, cool, wet. He drank. Some spilled onto the pillow. This didn't matter. There were pills-- white, bitter. He swallowed them.  
  
He drank until he was done drinking and the bottle went away. Finch closed his eyes.   
  
The mattress sank with weight-- Reese, that was Reese-- and a hand on his shoulder, brief, light, gone again.  
  
"The drugs will wear off," Reese murmured. His voice was soft, like cashmere, like vicuña, like eight-hundred thread count Egyptian cotton. Like all the soft, nice things that wealth could buy you, a world with all its edges rubbed off by millions of dollars.  
  
Root had had him strip to his underwear. Psychological warfare her battlefield, the art of mind-game and power dynamic her forte even more than firewalls and server transfers. Root had taken away the comfort of his ordered, tailored world. Used humiliation and discomfort like moves in a chess game...  
  
"Right now you just need to sleep. And re-hydrate. We'll get you a shower and a shave later."  
  
Was he supposed to acknowledge this? Probably. The pentothal made him want to talk but his tongue still felt large and awkward in his mouth. He felt Reese touch his shoulder again. His wrists, where the plastic zip-tie had bit in. Under his jaw, to check his pulse, Reese's fingertips warm and callused.  
  
Reese's hands moved like a sparrow, seeking, flitting, never finding. He wished they'd settle. It was hard to rest.   
  
"You've gotta stop getting drugged by beautiful women, Harold."  
  
Finch's lips tugged into a smile. Jokes. Jokes were good. He remembered jokes. Normal. Good. Go back to jokes.   
  
He heard Reese exhale, a shaky, stuttering noise, which puzzled him. What was wrong with John? He would have asked, or tried, but the mattress moved and Reese got up and Finch heard his footsteps, walking, pacing, the sound of his breathing and the rustle of cloth.  
  
"John," he said, trying again. This time it came out. Reese's steps halted, and then resumed, quick-step over to him, step-step-step.  
  
"What do you need?" Reese asked. The words fluttered like birds eager to break the egg.   
  
_Settle,_ he wanted to say. _Pick a branch. You're making me dizzy._  
  
Too much work. He shook his head. "...nothing," he managed, and let it go.   
  
Reese stood, another rustle of clothes, and hovered. No other word for it. Was there a stand-by switch for John Reese? He wished he could find it.   
  
And then the mattress sank again, from the wrong side; Finch blinked hazily at glowing red numbers as Reese climbed onto the bed behind him. And then Reese's body, lean, a tall man in a rumpled shirt, behind his own. An arm that settled over Finch's own midsection, to his bemusement. Reese's breath on the back of his neck (over old scar tissue). Reese's shirtfront brushing his spine through the thin cotton of his own tank top.  
  
"John," Finch said, slowly, wanting to make sure he was enunciating, and then again, "John. ...what are you doing?"  
  
Reese made that strange noise again, a whoosh of air like a deflating, epileptic tire. "Nothing. Just... just rest, Harold."  
  
"But... but what are you doing?" Finch asked again. He felt almost like himself with the question.   
  
"Shut up and let me just--" Reese said, and his voice was funny, thick and strained. "Just let me have this. I need to know you're here. Just for a bit."  
  
Finch blinked at the clock. "Alright," he answered after a second or two of muddy thought, because it seemed reasonable enough, because it was firmly-delivered and probably worth following and he couldn't think of any particular reason to refuse.  
  
"Okay," Reese said in that same odd tone of voice, and got closer. Body to body, his chest against Finch's own spine, breathing against him, one long arm around Finch's body. He felt Reese's arm tighten-- three, four seconds of almost-uncomfortable-- and then release again. He stared at the hovering red numbers.   
  
At least John had settled.  
  
Finch closed his eyes. A green square blinked on a black screen, waiting, waiting, ready for commands. It could keep waiting. For now he wasn't going anywhere. John had said not to. And the sheets were clean, and the pain was fading, and the world was soft again, safe again, and downtime was good for a system.


End file.
